Refugees from society and the recession gather at a former Marine base near the Salton Sea. Residents, like Half-Pint and Moth, make their own rules, give talent shows and hold religious services.

Reporting from Slab City, Calif. — Penny Puckett came to Slab City and fell in love.

After four years of "bumming around and hopping freight trains," the 25-year-old from Kansas City arrived at this hardscrabble section of the Imperial Valley desert and immediately embraced its sense of liberation from society's rules and norms.

What others might view as desolation and deprivation, Puckett saw as a way to reduce life to its essence: water, food and shelter (plus Internet and cellular phone service).

"Slab City people have a great need to live with just the bare necessities and are happy about it," she said.

Puckett also met and married the man of her dreams: a T-shirt design artist who lives in an art colony-style portion of Slab City known as East Jesus. A videotape was made of the couple's Halloween nuptials and shipped to Puckett's family.

The couple have yet to devise a long-term plan. But for the time being Slab City suits them just fine.

There are no municipal services, no streetlights and no water or sewage services. But nobody charges rent or collects fees or tries to impose homeowner covenants.

Several hundred people — ranging from the free-spirited young, retired "snowbirds" from colder climes and the tight-money crowd of all ages — live in a ramshackle collection of tents, trailers, aging mobile homes and other ad hoc dwellings. But this unlikely community appears to be growing, perhaps because of the troubled economy.

"It has a post-apocalyptic look and we like it that way," said Don Case, 41, who worked as a chef in Colorado and is planning to move to Alaska — someday. "It's peaceful here, people have it together."

Case has put together a small kitchen and cooks for several neighbors. His specialty: quail fajitas, made from the tiny birds that are prevalent in Slab City.

The community is spread over about 600 acres of rutted roads and bushes. To the west is Niland (population 1,100) and the Salton Sea. To the east is the Coachella Canal (ripe with catfish) and the Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range used by the Navy.

During World War II, the Slab City site was Camp Dunlap, a Marine artillery training base. But ownership of the acreage passed to the state in the 1950s.

Even when it had money, the state government never showed much interest in Slab City. A plan to sell the site to a San Diego developer in the 1990s fell through; so did an idea by Imperial County to turn it into an RV camping ground.

Now that the state is broke, Slab City is out of sight and out of mind, just the way its residents like it.

"This is the last truly free place in America," said Jim Merton, 54, who spends the winter at Slab City and the summer in Washington. "I can smoke some weed, drink some beer, be loud and rowdy, skinny-dip in the canal, and there's nobody to tell me I can't have fun."

Imperial County Sheriff's Lt. Charles Lucas said Slab City residents do not pose a major law enforcement challenge. "They're just trying to live out there," he said. "They're a mirror of what goes on in other places."

For some, Slab City has long been a way of life. Others are refugees from the national recession.

"A lot of us just have nowhere else to go," said Tracy Moss, 73, who came to Slab City with her husband, Ray, 55, an itinerant preacher, when they lost their home in Queen City, Texas.

Half-Pint rides a mule named Applejack. When a reporter sought to ask Half-Pint a question, she and Applejack galloped off.

C.B. Linda puts out a Slab City newsletter, which she will sell to outsiders for $3.

Her latest newsletter explains what she calls Slab City Ethics, among them: "Unlawful, violent or disruptive behavior will not be tolerated. TRESPASSING IS NOT OK. A campsite owner may be absent for awhile. Do not assume that it is abandoned. Ask the neighbors. Theft is not tolerated. NO DUMPING."

Alas, C.B. Linda's rules are not universally followed.

Mounds of trash dot the rough landscape, including large collections of beer cans. Break-ins are so common that one Slab City resident said he leaves his trailer door unlocked so thieves do not break it down when he is away getting provisions.

Which is not to say that the trappings of civilization are not present in Slab City. There are Saturday night talent shows, movie nights, several open-air eating places, an Internet cafe, a small library and a prefabricated building that is used for Sunday church services and a Wednesday night Bible study class.

The pastor is Patrick McFarland, 61, who lives in Slab City with his wife. To McFarland, Slab City is a community of lost souls, driven to the desert by a crumbling civilization that has rejected God and is paying the spiritual price.